A Letter to the Red States

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s,

we get most of the happy families; you get a bunch of single moms.

You get The Alamo; we get Yosemite.

]]>

Letter to the Red States

Our Split Will Be Beneficial to the Nation

Dear Red States, We’re ticked off at the way you’ve treated California, and we’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, the Blue States include Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of our new country. To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and all the Slave States; we get stem cell research, the Sierras, the entire Pacific Northwest, and the best beaches. We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs; you get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the US tax revenue; you get to make the Red States pay their fair share. We get the Statue of Liberty; you get Opry Land. We get Intel and Microsoft; you get World Com. We get San Francisco and Carmel; you get Fargo, North Dakota and Picayune, Mississippi. We get Harvard, Yale and Princeton  In fact, we get all the Ivy League and Seven Sisters, plus Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Berkeley, Cal Tech, UCLA, and MIT; you get Oral Roberts University, Ole’ Miss, and Bob Jones University. We get the Golden Gate Bridge; you get the Atchafalaya Causeway. We get Elliot Spitzer; you get Rush Limbaugh. We get PBS; you get Professional Wrestling and the Daytona Speedway.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get most of the happy families; you get a bunch of single moms. You get The Alamo; we get Yosemite.

Please be aware that our new country will be pro-environment, pro-choice and anti-war. We’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight your wars, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths under false pretenses, and they don’t care if the news censors pictures of their dead children’s caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs eventually turn up so you can feel that the sacrifice of our country’s reputation, money, and young men and women was worthwhile and that your President is not a liar (and you will be rid of those of us who believe he is not even our President). With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country’s fresh water, 86 percent of the aerospace industry, more than 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of America’s quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, and most of the high-quality low-sulfur coal.

We also will have all living Redwoods, Giant Sequoias and Condors. We will get the solar energy industry; you will get 90 percent of the most polluted toxic waste cleanup sites in the US. We will have the Pacific Coast salmon industry; you will have Louisiana’s crayfish. We will get the high-tech industry; you will get Kentucky.

With the Red States, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, and virtually 100 percent of all televangelists and telemarketing companies, thank you. Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale and that Joshua made the Earth stand still in its rotation, 62 percent believe life is sacred (unless they’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws), 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent still believe that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, and 61 percent believe they are people with higher morals then ours. Sincerely,A Thinking American

posted 18 January 2005

* * * * *

Note: The map above is a US. version including Alaska and Hawaii.

The presidential election is decided on the basis of the electoral college. Each state contributes a certain number of electors to the electoral college, who vote according to the majority in their state. The candidate receiving a majority of the votes in the electoral college wins the election. The electoral votes are apportioned roughly according to states’ populations, as measured by the census, but with a small but deliberate bias in favor of smaller states. More on Elections

In a segregated society in which minority writers and artists could find few ways to reach an audience, journalism gave them access to diverse U.S. communities. The original essays in this volume show how marginalized voices attempted to be heard in their day. The Black Press progresses chronologically from abolitionist newspapers to today’s Internet and reveals how the black press’s content and its very form changed with evolving historical conditions in America. The essays address the production, distribution, regulation, and reception of black journalism, illustrating a more textured public discourse, one that exchanges ideas not just within the black community, but also within the nation at large. The contributors demonstrate that African American journalists redefined class, restaged race and nationhood, and reset the terms of public conversation, providing a fuller understanding of the varied cultural battles fought throughout our country’s history. Dayton Library / Questia

According to the author, this society has historically exerted considerable pressure on black females to fit into one of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless Mammys behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to white folks domestic concerns, often at the expense of those of her own familys needs. By contrast, the relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.

Professor Perry points out how the propagation of these harmful myths have served the mainstream culture well. For instance, the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for black females to feel a maternal instinct towards Caucasian babies.

This is a powerful, moving story that details the effects of the infamous Mau Mau war, the African nationalist revolt against colonial oppression in Kenya, on the lives of ordinary men and women, and on one family in particular. Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a rubbish heap and look into their futures. Njoroge is excited; his family has decided that he will attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. Together they will serve their countrythe teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya and the times are against them. In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau the choice is simple, but for Njoroge the scholar, the dream of progress through learning is a hard one to give up.Penguin

Though he lived throughout much of the Southand even worked his way into parts of the North for a timeJim Crow was conceived and buried in Maryland. From Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s infamous decision in the Dred Scott case to Thurgood Marshall’s eloquent and effective work on Brown v. Board of Education, the battle for black equality is very much the story of Free State women and men. Here, Baltimore Sun columnist C. Fraser Smith recounts that tale through the stories, words, and deeds of famous, infamous, and little-known Marylanders. He traces the roots of Jim Crow laws from Dred Scott to Plessy v. Ferguson and describes the parallel and opposite early efforts of those who struggled to establish freedom and basic rights for African Americans.

Following the historical trail of evidence, Smith relates latter-day examples of Maryland residents who trod those same steps, from the thrice-failed attempt to deny black people the vote in the early twentieth century to nascent demonstrations for open access to lunch counters, movie theaters, stores, golf courses, and other public and private institutionsstruggles that occurred decades before the now-celebrated historical figures strode onto the national civil rights scene.